2011 Webinar: Lessons from Researchers

Overview

Building Trust between Minorities and Researchers is a federally funded initiative based at the University of Maryland’s Center for Health Equity. The goal of this initiative is to develop, implement and evaluate strategies aimed at increasing minority participation in biomedical and public health research. PRIM&R partnered with the research team to facilitate the development and presentation of educational programs that improve research literacy for and respectful engagement with minority communities. The second webinar in a three-part series, Lessons from Researchers: Best Practices for Respectful Engagement with Minority Communities presented the findings from an in-depth and unique survey and interviews of researchers, research staff and IRB members and staff.

Topics for discussion included:

Researchers’ attitudes toward community engagement

Challenges in building community partnerships

Best practices for community partnerships

Impact of community engagement on recruitment and retention

Audience

The topic of this webinar was relevant to researchers, research staff, IRB members, and anyone working with human research protections programs (HRPPs) and IRBs.

Faculty

Stephen B. Thomas, PhDDr. Stephen B. Thomas is professor of health services administration and founding director of the University of Maryland Center for Health Equity, established September 2010. One of the nation’s leading scholars in the effort to eliminate racial and ethnic health disparities, Dr. Thomas is principal investigator of the Research Center of Excellence on Minority Health Disparities, funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH)-National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD). He is also principal investigator (with Dr. Sandra Quinn) of the NIH National Bioethics Infrastructure Initiative: Building Trust Between Minorities and Researchers, awarded in 2009.

Dr. Thomas has been recognized at the national level for his professional accomplishments, receiving the 2010 Open Society Award from the Society for Public Health Education for his work on advancing social justice over the past twenty years. In 2005, he was awarded David Satcher Award from the Directors of Health Promotion and Education for his leadership in reducing health disparities through the improvement of health promotion and health education programs at the state and local levels, and the 2004 he was awarded the Alonzo Smyth Yerby Award from the Harvard School of Public Health for his work with people suffering the health effects of poverty. Over the years, his body of work is recognized as one of the scholarly contributions leading to the 1997 Presidential apology to survivors of the USPHS Syphilis Study.

Dr. Thomas has served on numerous national committees, and he serves on the advisory board for the Mayo Clinic’s Cancer Center and Mayo’s Center for Translational Science Activities. He is a former training site director and currently a national mentor for the Kellogg health scholars post-doctoral program at the University of Pittsburgh. His work has been published in leading peer reviewed journals such as the Journal of the American Public Health Association, Social Science and Medicine, Health Promotion Practice, and Archives of Internal Medicine.

Sandra Crouse Quinn, PhDDr. Sandra Crouse Quinn is the associate dean for public health initiatives and professor in the department of family science at the school of public health, University of Maryland, College Park. She is the principal investigator on the Bioethics Research Infrastructure Initiative, Building Trust between Minorities and Researchers, funded by the NIMHD, NIH. In addition, Dr. Quinn serves as the Co-Principal Investigator on a five year Research Center of Excellence on Minority Health Disparities also funded by the NIH -NIMHD. Dr. Quinn is currently the principal investigator on a longitudinal national study of public attitudes toward H1N1 conducted over 2009-2010, in which she is studying disparities affecting specific populations’ trust and willingness to accept H1N1vaccine and drugs under an emergency use authorization. Her research interests include engagement of minority and marginalized communities in research; community advisory boards; and risk communication in emergencies and disasters.

Certificates of Attendance

Certificates of Attendance for the Lessons from Researchers: Best Practices for Respectful Engagement with Minority Communities webinar will be made available at the conclusion of the webinar. To access the certificate, you must first complete the online evaluation. Such certificates are useful for obtaining Continuing Education Credits (not Continuing Medical Education Credits) from professional associations. Note that guidelines concerning Continuing Education Credits may differ, and you should consult the appropriate professional association representative for further guidance.

Continuing Education (CE) Credit for CIP Recertification
Webinar participants holding the CIP credential who wish to apply credits from Lessons from Researchers: Best Practices for Respectful Engagement with Minority Communities toward CIP recertification may submit a Certificate of Attendance as documentation of participation. Participation in this 90-minute webinar counts as 1.5 CE credit hours.